Edna Purviance
Olga Edna Purviance (* October 21, 1895 in Paradise Valley, Nevada, † January 11, 1958 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California ) was an American film actress of the silent film era. She was the female lead of many earlier films Charles Chaplin.
Life
Even as a child was Edna Purviance artistic talent: She was a talented pianist. Nevertheless, she attended in San Francisco a trade school to become a stenographer.
1915 Charles Chaplin was working on his second film for Essanay, for which he still needed a lead actress. A fellow actor was a pretty girl noticed in a cafe in San Francisco (maybe because Edna would sometimes walk their duck on a leash ). Chaplin met with her, and although he looked at her serious charisma initially considered unsuitable for comedies, she got the role: " She was more than pretty, she was beautiful. During the conversation, she seemed sad and serious. After only she told me that she had lovesickness. I doubted that they could act or ever had humor, so serious they seemed. We committed yet. Decorate my movies they would in any case. " Privately, the two ( 1915-1917 ) a pair.
Purviance performed in 35 of Chaplin's early films, including the classics The Tramp, The Immigrant, Easy Street, A Dog's Life and The Kid. With the nights of a beautiful woman, the first film in which she played the lead role, Chaplin wanted to make in return for their loyalty to the star, but the film was a commercial failure. Edna Purviance was still playing in two movies: . A Woman of the Sea, directed by Josef von Sternberg and produced by Chaplin ( Chaplin brought the film is not in the rental), and Education de Prince, a French film from 1926 Thereafter, Edna Purviance continued as an actress to rest rumors spoke of, that she was an alcoholic. Chaplin supported her financially until her death in 1958.
Rumors have survived, that she had graduated in Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux a cameo appearance without text. Chaplin biographer David Robinson wrote, Purviance would actually just come back in the Chaplin Studios, and had been preparing for a small role in Verdoux, but was then not in front of the camera.
Edna Purviance died on 11 January 1958 at the age of 62 from cancer. Her grave is located on the Grand View Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale ( California).
In Richard Attenborough's Chaplin Edna is played by Penelope Ann Miller.